What name does Don Quixote give to his imagined lady?

The story behind the answer

Don Quixote gives his imagined lady the name Dulcinea del Toboso.

Before beginning his adventures, Alonso Quijano decides that a knight-errant must have a lady to inspire his deeds. He chooses a peasant woman from the nearby village of El Toboso and transforms her in his imagination into an idealized noblewoman. He names her Dulcinea del Toboso, a title designed to sound suitably elegant and aristocratic.

The woman behind this fantasy is Aldonza Lorenzo, whom the novel describes as a local farmworker. Don Quixote’s Dulcinea, however, is not simply a realistic portrait of Aldonza: she is an imagined model of beauty, virtue, and noble status. Dulcinea never appears directly or speaks in Cervantes’s novel, yet she motivates many of Don Quixote’s actions.

A common mix-up is treating Aldonza Lorenzo as the answer. Aldonza is the woman who inspires the invention; Dulcinea del Toboso is the name Don Quixote gives to his idealized lady.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026

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